At 9:14 p.m. Thursday, the 909 Comedian Series, sponsored by the Student Activities Council, launched this year’s series of well-regarded comic entertainers at the Watkins Auditorium in the UC. As the name of the series implies, the 909 events are all slated to begin at 9:09 p.m.

Gerry Dee was first on this year’s lineup and entertained mostly freshmen, but several seniors were on hand as well. Dee performed at UTM this spring. He dealt with topics ranging from his years as a 12th-grade history teacher, to teaching PE, to marijuana use, to working for his Italian neighbor.

Dee, son of Scottish immigrants, also admitted that he is Canadian. “We got six Olympic medals right now; you got one guy that has eight,” he said. Dee recalled memories from his childhood, including working for an Italian neighbor who truncated the word “coffee” to “coff.” He joked that he was scarred as a child when his neighbor would tell him in a heavy Italian accent, “Hey Gerr,’ you wanna go fa coff?”

Dee shared another psychologically scarring event in the sixth grade. “They should get rid of that reading aloud in school,” he said. “Nobody’s going to listen. You’d always count ahead to see which paragraph you’d have to read and pray you got an easy one. At least there was always the guy that was seven reading levels below you.”

When studying fractions in sixth grade, Dee recalls receiving his grade in fraction form, which he was unable to understand.

Dee claimed to be the fifth-best dancer in Canada, and he challenged one of UTM’s own to a dance-off. Daryl Adams, a 17-year-old Business major from Memphis, rose to the challenge.

Adams said, “I want something hard, like rap or something.”

Adams performed his impromptu hip-hop style dance and Dee followed with his routine to Ice Ice Baby.

Aside from the comedic moments, Dee gave critical advice to the freshmen in the room. “This isn’t a comedy show. This is about staying in school and not smoking pot, you potheads.” He also had wise words for education majors. “One thing they don’t tell you when you start teaching is if you go drinking, you plan up something where you don’t have to talk the next day. I gave my kids assignments on Moses.”

The 909 comedian aroused a hearty standing ovation from the moderate-sized assembly.

Dee has performed on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn and on the Mike Bullard Show.

“I’m on the way to South Africa to perform in the Cape Town Comedy Festival and I got a film coming up in October called Head Coach.” Dee will produce and star in the film. Dee moved to Hollywood to begin his entertainment career in earnest in 2003.

Sheena Hickerson, executive chair of Student Activities Council, said that she wished the turnout would have been higher for the event, but “the show went over very well.”

“We put a lot of time and effort to put on these shows. Students have already paid the cost with their student fees,” Hickerson said. The SAC anticipates a higher turnout for other shows.

The next entertainer in the 909 series will be “Mad” Chad Taylor at 9:09 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 2.